30 May Intellectual Yet Idiot (IYI) (NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB)
The IYI subscribes to The New Yorker, a journal designed so philistines can learn to fake a conversation about evolution,
neurosomething, cognitive biases, and quantum mechanics. He
never curses on social media. He speaks of “equality of races” and
“economic equality,” but never goes out drinking with a minority
cab driver (again, no real skin in the game, as, I will repeat until I
am hoarse, the concept is fundamentally foreign to the IYI). The
modern IYI has attended more than one TED talk in person or
watched more than two TED talks on YouTube.
The IYI mistakes the Near East (ancient Eastern Mediterranean)
for the Middle East.
The IYI has a copy of the first hardback edition of The Black
Swan on his shelf, but mistakes absence of evidence for evidence
of absence. He believes that GMOs are “science,” that their
“technology” is in the same risk class as conventional breeding.
Typically, the IYI get first-order logic right, but not second-
order (or higher) effects, making him totally incompetent in
complex domains.
The IYI joins a club to get travel privileges; if he is a social
scientist, he uses statistics without knowing how they are derived
(like Steven Pinker and psycholophasters in general); when in the
United Kingdom, he goes to literary festivals and eats cucumber
sandwiches, taking small bites at a time; he drinks red wine with
steak (never white); he doesn’t know that there is no difference between
“pseudointellectual” and “intellectual” in the absence of skin in
the game; he has mentioned quantum mechanics at least twice in
the past five years in conversations that had nothing to do with
physics.
The IYI likes to use buzzwords from philosophy of science
when discussing unrelated phenomena; he goes two or three levels
too theoretical for a given problem.
SKIN IN THE GAME
NASSIM NICHOLAS TALEB
